특사단, 김영철•리선권 환담 후 공식면담…김정은 만남 여부 주목
President Moon Jae-in's special envoy are now in Pyongyang.
The delegation is made up of the same five officials who visited North Korea around half a year ago.
They've been credited for playing a key role in bringing all the different sides back to the table.... after months of tensions.
This time, their mission include hashing out details of the inter-Korean summit slated to take place this month.
Let's start things off by going straight to our Cheongwadae correspondent Hwang Hojun.
Hojun what do you have for us at this hour.
Daniel,
So, the Blue House spokesperson said this morning during his regular press briefing that the envoys are communicating with the top office via fax machine. But given the circumstances,... those updates aren't coming in as much as we would like.
The last we heard from them was early this afternoon around 1:30 pm Korea time.
The special delgation, including Chung Eui-yong, the head of the National Security Office, arrived safe and sound at Pyongyang International Airport at 9 am this morning.
They were greeted by Ri Son-kwon, North Korea's head of the Committee for Peaceful Reunification and together they headed to the twin-towered Koryo Hotel in downtown Pyongyang.
They were then joined by Kim Yong-chol, who heads North Korea's department in charge of inter-Korean ties and who also serves as Pyongyang's point man in deliberations with South Korea and the U.S.
Their conversation lasted twenty minutes.
Then, the South Korean envoys said in a fax, they were asked to move to (quote) "an undisclosed venue" for the start of official talks,... which, of course, prompted speculation that the talks may have involved North Korean leader Kim Jong-un himself.
To refresh your memory, Chung Eui-yong in fact said yesterday to the press that he'd be carrying a personal letter to Kim Jong-un from President Moon.
But we'll have to wait and see whether the envoys got a chance to meet and speak to Kim in person or not.
You can imagine there's a lot of pressure on them.
It was only two weeks ago that President Trump canceled his Secretary of State's planned visit to North Korea,... citing lack of progress on denuclearization.
But we can at least expect three things from the evoys -- one, settling the specific date and agenda for the inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang this month, negotiating ways to achieve the "complete" denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and lastly, talking about improving relations between the two Koreas by implementing the Panmunjom Declaration.
Daniel.
